Rakuten

I've been working in Tokyo HQ, tech department. I do realize it's a big company and a lot depends on a team, department, etc. Your mileage may vary.

For me, though, it was 5 years of fun in most cases. I happened to join a very positive and dedicated bunch of people, a team working with the mail system. I felt accepted; my skills have been put to good use and developed as well along the way. My opinion mattered, and I could have a direct impact on the product we developed.

Obviously, you can't always start something from scratch, and you don't always have super exciting features to develop. Nonetheless, there were a lot of challenging problems to solve – either new or existing ones. The company is big, and so I've never been bored; there is always something interesting to do.

It is a Japanese company, but very open to foreigners. Almost everyone speaks okay-ish English, and if not, you have someone who can help within reach.

• Free food all day (if you come early enough for breakfast or stay long enough for dinner)
• Combini shop on premises
• Quarterly free team party
• Annual events you can join as a guest or host (tech conference, family day, group day, baseball match in Tokyo Dome, etc.)
• Plenty of activity clubs to join
• Gym on premises

There is no dress code, except for an ID badge.

Company closes offices for 3 days in summer and 3 days in winter to give people some rest time. No one ever asked me to work overtime; on the contrary, they make sure you are not working too long.

Salary could be better. There is a lot of politics involved (again, big company), so you must be careful not to be tangled in it, unless this is what you like – I don't.

There are combini shops and vending machines in the building (this is nice), but you must pay with a company-issued prepaid card only (this is annoying).

Sometimes you may feel a religious respect for the CEO. He's not a bad guy (if a bit arrogant and a bit boasting sometimes, generally okay-ish, though), but sometimes it feels like people are exaggerating a lot when they speak about him, about his ideas, etc., to the point that you may wonder if they haven't lost contact with reality.

There is a cult of measuring everything in the company, but it happens that wrong metrics are being measured for KPIs.

Rigid Japanese laws mean no flex hours, no remote work (the latter has been relaxed a bit though). No sick days – you must use holidays or come to the office even when you're cold.

Too many meetings. Some internal tools are terrible, old, and no one wants to improve them. The benefits program is terrible.

No more Japanese classes (they were there a few years ago).

Overall okay in Japan, but be careful about overseas offices. Respect cultural differences and do some research on how to share company values seamlessly in a given country.

Less politics in the office.

More transparency on why some major decisions have been made. This means less BS and more honest dialogue with employees.

Allow people to choose when they want to work.

Show some compassion when people are sick. Asking them to come to the office just spreads the virus, too.

Increase salary. Look around you, other companies are poaching your best engineers by luring them in with better salaries. (And yes, I know there are changes on the way, but those must happen now, otherwise your people are gone.)